I’ve also been willing to share any help that I could give to any other artist.

Usually I throw away what I don’t get right the first time.

In the ’50s Morris Louis and I were not known, David Smith and Helen Frankenthaler were not much known.

With artists of my own generation there was at first no group identity – and never a clique.

I met David Smith through my former wife, Cornelia, who’d studied with him.

Context begins with other artists – seniors and mentors.

For me context is the key – from that comes the understanding of everything.

I paint my paintings directly. I almost never paint over. This maintains the attention of the picture for me, my contact with what I am doing.

That's the way I work. Usually I start by fooling with the stuff, make messes. Sometimes something comes out of it; sometimes it doesn't.

Clem had made it known that Pollock was a great painter.